The UK Treasury has given extra funding to the Serious Fraud Office to bolster its criminal investigation into alleged bribery by Rolls-Royce in Indonesia and China.
The rare move, only the third such agreement in recent times, underscores both the probe’s scope and the pressure on the cash-strapped SFO to land a sizeable British scalp for overseas corruption. The Treasury has agreed to so-called blockbuster funding “in the low millions” of pounds for the SFO’s probe, according to people familiar with the arrangement.
It follows similar deals struck by the SFO for its investigations into alleged Libor rigging, and into Barclays’ deals with Qatar during the bank’s 2008 emergency cash call.